This You Can Keep
by bergundy
Summary: Anonymity is not just putting on a mask – it's turning your back on who you are. Years ago, Itachi let Danzou put him through emotional conditioning and remained in Konoha as part of the ANBU Root division. Now, confronted with his own mortality and too much unfinished business, he starts to question everything. Fifth scenario of the "He was Captain" A/U series.
1. Chiaroscuro

**Notes:** In which Itachi is an ANBU Root division captain, possibly haunted, and definitely insane. (Shisui may be able to tip you off.)

By the way… it also suddenly makes sense to me why Itachi might not have been able to explain himself, even if he wanted to later. It's very likely that he was part of Root in canon, and doesn't Danzou seal everyone's tongue in that organization to guarantee their discretion?

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. Japanese suffixes are used when they sound less clumsy. Some scenes/quotes taken directly from the manga. There's also an obscure song reference.

Other warnings: Achronological. There are some time-markers in each section, some subtler than others. Also, I would assume that Itachi abroad (in canon) would have picked up many new things and approached his problems differently; he is not entirely/at all the same person here.

…

_In this scenario_: On the surface, it's about what might have happened if, instead of leaving Konoha after the Uchiha massacre, Itachi had remained behind as a captain in Root. Below the surface, this could be titled Ode to Uchiha Shisui.

Erm, this is even more character-driven than most of my other ANBU!Itachi scenarios, and I'll try to keep each chapter mostly self-contained while advancing a larger plot so that the (few/loyal/persevering/awesome) readers won't tear their hair out between each update. I also just realized that this chapter and "Reset"'s latest have a lot in common. I guess I play with the same things a lot. Hope you enjoy anyway!

* * *

_Chiaroscuro_

* * *

Yakushi Kabuto's hand slashed through the air so quickly that the naked eye would only see the afterimage of chakra. But to Itachi's Sharingan, he moved about as fast as a fly in amber. Kabuto's hand was even slower than the sluggish blue glow rippling after it. Easily avoided.

"I'm honored if Danzou sent his best," said Kabuto. "But it won't make a difference."

The boy – or man; he was, after all, nineteen years old on the dossier, while Itachi himself had recently turned seventeen – had a smooth tenor voice, unruffled and conversational. It was quite different from the panicked shouts or pleading that one might expect in this line of work. Then again, Itachi usually completed assassinations before the target had the chance to say anything at all. It also rarely involved ninjutsu or genjutsu; often taijutsu alone sufficed.

"You're slipping," muttered Shisui in his ear.

"You should have brought at least nine more friends with you," Kabuto went on, so mildly that he didn't sound boastful, only as if he'd been remarking on the weather outside – which was a still, clear night, though moonless. "All I need is to touch you once with these chakra scalpels and you might as well be born handless. It's better than any tenketsu-sealing technique of the Hyuuga Clan. But I'm sure that you already know how to copy this technique, with those eyes."

Perhaps Kabuto had caught a glimpse of the crimson irises in the glow of his own chakra. Either way, he didn't seem that surprised to encounter an Uchiha who was also Konoha ANBU, though Itachi had killed every Uchiha but one, to the best of public knowledge.

The fact that Kabuto was better-informed than most could explain why Danzou wanted him dead.

"That was my chance, wasn't it?" said Kabuto, this time sounding vaguely wistful. "You're too professional to speak, and a bit too fast for me to capture."

Itachi's tanto sliced through Kabuto's middle. The man's dark outer vest tore open as his back bulged with a sudden tumor, or rather, what appeared to be a rapidly swelling blister that gleamed slickly like a frog's throat. Tendrils of chakra flickered inside the tautly stretched skin, illuminating blue-black veins.

No genjutsu, this – some form of ninjutsu, a hybrid of water and fire that shouldn't have been possible. The closest visual comparison Itachi could recall was that of a corpse fished from the water hours after death. The bloated growth burst without warning, expelling a scalding, tinted mist. _Steam._

Itachi was no longer there, but slashing at the sudden displacement of air in front of him as his shadow clone closed in simultaneously. Kunai struck away shuriken with a harsh _ping_ of metal. For several heartbeats, their fight was as insubstantial and fleeting as the shadows that pressed thickly against them, a whirl of sharp edges and surfaces that didn't quite meet.

It couldn't last – and it didn't. Itachi's tanto dug into the solid flesh of a hand, and when Kabuto's depthless black gaze snagged on Itachi's Sharingan, the killing blow became mere formality. The only incongruence was the tensed muscle on the pale-haired man's face. He had died smiling.

Shisui spoke a single word in the dense silence: "Odd."

Itachi didn't answer his cousin. Cool night air slipped in through the holes of his mask as he flipped himself onto the roof. He caught his breath as he crouched atop of a defunct lamp, concerned in a detached, clinical way about the stab of pain in his side. It was the kind of ache that used to come from pushing himself too far in taijutsu practice or endurance training. Itachi hadn't experienced any sort of sensation – physical or emotional – for a number of years. Since no one saw him, not even his targets, very few people actively sought to inflict wounds on him, let alone actually landed one. Well, there was Sasuke, but he had only the will, not the strength. Perhaps in a few more years…

The room where Itachi reported to the commander of the battalion had once served as an interrogation chamber. Now the single desk had been pushed against one of the shorter walls. The rest of the entire basement level was pitch-black. It could house five hundred inmates, but no one used it for that purpose anymore, now that the entire level had been struck off the secret maps of the underground complex beneath the ANBU barracks.

Only those who were forgotten themselves walked these corridors.

Itachi knelt on one knee before the commander.

"The mission is complete. There were no complications."

_Liar._

He sensed rather than saw the other man's shoulders relax minutely. "I have another assignment for you. 9720 has been stirring up trouble of late. Start surveillance on him. While you're doing that, follow Code 5 protocol and take over from Torune on 11850 from 0500 to 1900."

Itachi inclined his head to show that he understood. Now he waited for the subtle flick of fingers, the signal that he was dismissed to begin the next task.

"No complications," echoed the commander. "Your breathing seems louder."

Itachi said nothing.

"Perhaps it is quieter tonight," murmured Danzou. He dismissed Itachi with a slight wave of his hand.

Proper procedure was to head straight to the separate barracks of the Root subdivision and avail himself of what sustenance and medical supplies were in their stores. He didn't feel that he needed either at present, though Shisui's voice nagged him down the full length of the corridor and the ache had crawled up his side and between his ribs, closing its fist somewhere in his chest region.

He did know that he wanted space to breathe. Instead of retiring to the barracks, Itachi bounded from one enormous hewn face on the Hokage Monument to another until he reached the hollow recess behind the Shodaime's enormous ear. Tucked in its shadow, he looked out on the silent village, imagining the familiar outline of tenements and buildings that the night rendered invisible. He wished Konoha would actually be as it appeared – serene, whole, undisturbed by its own inner workings.

Another scene flashed before his eyes – a summer twilight, someone slicing open a passion fruit in the kitchen: _Try this, Itachi. Do you like it? _Itachi hadn't had any particular opinion about it, his mind occupied with other things; that, too, he remembered. Or maybe he'd had an opinion, but had since forgotten everything but the knowledge that he had recalled that evening as "pleasant" long ago. Years later, he found himself disposing of No. 11981, whose name he hadn't needed to know (though he did know; Tsurugi Misumi was perfectly preserved in his memory like everyone Itachi had ever killed). _Then_ he had looked at the spillage from the gash in the man's stomach, and thought of the pulpy innards of passion fruit on a warm, dusky evening.

"You didn't recognize that mist trick Kabuto used," Shisui mused, so that his memories shivered and dissipated like a breath in winter. His cousin alone remained. "It could be nothing. Or it could be everything. How effectively are you going to protect Konoha from the shadows, Itachi, if you're wheezing loud enough to scare all the birds within a meter radius? Your next target will probably complain that you're disturbing his sleep. Humiliating."

"I don't care about that," Itachi said, goaded into speech.

He heard his cousin snort, a noise at once fond and derisive. "We both know you're not doing any of this out of pride, at least. Or are you?"

Itachi couldn't very well skip into Konoha's main hospital and request a medic. For one, appointments over there usually required the patient to identify himself – and unlike more conventionally recruited ANBU, he didn't have a more acceptable public persona. Genjutsu worked well in terms of confusing the enemy, but a medic-nin under genjutsu wouldn't be able to do the job.

"Just hold on to that thought," said Shisui, "and see if you come up with a better alternative. It's not serious yet."

If it made Itachi weaker, it couldn't have come at a less convenient time. According to his latest orders, Itachi would be watching 9720 in addition to 11850. 9720 was a jounin who had once held the rank of ANBU captain. His second resignation from the division spoke volumes about his opinion of the current regime. Itachi could have deduced it on his own. Kakashi, unlike Umino Iruka, had been a personal acquaintance.

"He may have a Sharingan, but he's no Uchiha," Shisui remarked, the xenophobic clan prejudice bleeding through. "It'll make things slightly more interesting."

Itachi hadn't found anything interesting in years, except… "He's Sasuke's new instructor." Even saying the words aloud stirred deeply-buried emotions. He thought of sunlight slanting in through a window and picking out the texture of clean tatami mats. The gentle, warm clasp of Mother's hands. Sasuke's laughter as he dashed forward, fueled by the misguided belief that _today _was the day Itachi would give him tips on kunai throwing.

"Well, don't make a big deal out of it."

"I won't." Left unspoken was the knowledge that it was too late not to. Danzou would never forgive that one detail that marred the totality of his wishes for the Uchiha Clan, even though he himself had been the one to offer to spare Sasuke.

"And what was _that_ today, with Yakushi? You don't usually let them get chatty with you."

"Perhaps I'm tired of listening only to you every waking moment," said Itachi, remembering a time when he had felt more charitable toward his cousin.

* * *

One afternoon several years ago, Itachi walked home with his fate branded on his shoulder.

Although he wore the usual, somber colors of his clan, Itachi attracted little attention from the other, generally more brightly-dressed pedestrians. After all, the Uchiha were a common sight in the village, being both numerous and often busy with their work in the police force even if they were not out on missions.

Only a few cursory greetings came his way. The owner of the dango shop looked up from sweeping the storefront as he passed and called out to him. "Itachi-kun, are you going home now? Would you let Uruchi-san know that we have a new kind of sakura mochi for her to try?"

"Yes, I'll let Aunt Uruchi know."

That was the longest exchange he had before turning down the street that was labeled on all the maps of the village as the Uchiha compound. Only other ANBU operatives, in addition to the Hokage and the village elders, had been permitted to attend the ceremony earlier that day, with the result that none of Itachi's family had seen him receive the tattoo.

Not for lack of trying on Fugaku's part. Itachi's father had followed his progress closely, not realizing that Itachi's induction into the black ops had been decided nearly half a year ago. In capitulating to his father's wishes, Itachi sparred with many of his relatives on a regular basis, antagonizing them in the process. At this point, only one or two of his cousins – including Shisui – really had a sporting chance against him. Wounded pride bred hostility, but his father acted oblivious to the simmering resentment – or relished it as a sign of his son's prowess.

In a rare moment of selfishness, Itachi put off the talk with his father by taking the scenic route back, approaching the compound from the east rather than the expected western end near the ANBU headquarters.

It was a humid spring day. Latent heat radiated from the ground. He imagined it seeping through the soles of his sandals, like summer fighting to burst through ahead of its time. An indolent air hung over this end of the compound where it bordered the civilian district. Shadows draped in inviting swathes from overhangs and, farther up, laundry lines that sagged under the weight of uncountable articles of clothing, many stamped with the red and white fan.

There, within the shadow cast by the awning of the closed senbei shop, leaned his cousin.

As Itachi came up the street, Shisui stepped out of the shade. Sunlight painted dark blue glints in his hair and threw a warmer tint on his fair skin. Itachi's coloration was much the same. Outsiders often mistook them for brothers.

"Let's see it, then."

Ignoring the advice of the kunoichi who had inked the tattoo, Itachi unpinned the bandage around the upper part of his left arm, exposing the unraveling spiral on his skin. It had the rich, dark red of blood drawn directly from the vein, but all Itachi could think about at that particular moment was how much it itched.

At the end of a brief, silent appraisal, Shisui crossed his arms. "So, you know what you can do now?"

Itachi tilted his head, waiting.

One corner of Shisui's mouth quirked up in an unfinished grin. "Stop worrying that you're crazy. Because your induction into ANBU has just officially confirmed it."

Itachi started to rewrap his shoulder. "Thanks. My sanity has always been my foremost concern."

Shisui snorted. "As well it should be. Uncle Fugaku's going to throw a party for you when he hears – or what passes for a party for him, anyway. 'Least Aunt Mikoto will be in charge of the food."

"I have to go on one more mission before the enlistment becomes official," said Itachi. Once his father heard, he'd doubtlessly insist on more training and sparring sessions.

Shisui nodded, giving him a sympathetic pat on his other shoulder. It was either in answer to Itachi's unspoken thought, or offered as some kind of condolence because Itachi had joined the ANBU. No words of congratulation from Shisui – Itachi could always count on his cousin to be truthful.

In tacit agreement, they turned and started down the street to the heart of the clan houses. A flicker of life darted past, so unexpected that Itachi activated his Sharingan without conscious thought. The small shadow skittered behind rice-paper walls, tearing past the very person whose homecoming he had anticipated so eagerly. Sasuke ran so loudly that Itachi could practically count his footsteps. He felt a smile tug at his mouth even as his cousin's laugh fell on his ears.

"Pride of the Uchiha, that one. But he's fast enough for his age… and for a boy who hasn't learnt chakra control yet."

He narrowed his eyes in warning at Shisui. "Just remember, I'm the only one allowed to torture him." Sometimes it took effort to remember how to turn dire words into lighthearted banter, but with Shisui, Itachi could still make a fair attempt.

"Brother's prerogative, I know." Shisui turned, starting to head down the street where the clan elders waited, implicitly herding Itachi along. Itachi followed – this time. "He's been harassing everyone all morning to train him in kunai-throwing, or asking them when you'd be back. You'll shut him up, yeah?" Despite the harsh words, Shisui said all this with a hint of a grin, the way everyone did when they spoke of Sasuke, the youngest and best-loved member of the clan.

More and more, Itachi felt uneasy about training his brother in anything. A heaviness settled in his stomach when he remembered his last mission. He could still hear the screams – that boy hadn't been much older than Sasuke, though Itachi technically wasn't so old himself.

The Uchiha depended on their own family and cousins to pass on special techniques long before they entered the village academy. The last thing Itachi wanted to do, though, was inadvertently teach Sasuke a skill that would give him the same nightmares, or worse: convince the clan that he should be sped through his academy years, losing in the process the chance to form friendships with his peers. "I'll see Sasuke later. I need to practice by myself."

His noose seemed to tighten a little every day.

"He's going to feel neglected, you know."

"It should be a reprieve," Itachi pointed out, "if I'm only going to torment him."

"Yes, but he's a masochist." Shisui shrugged, hands in his pockets. "I'd show him a few things, but I've got a date – and I'll already have to end it early for whatever your father's planning tonight."

"I'm sorry." He was, too, though about other things – things he wasn't sure would happen, but felt heavy and dark like the tattoo on his shoulder. Subjects not meant to be voiced on that sunny afternoon.

"Hana will understand. She's blown me off for family functions before."

Itachi gave his cousin a sidelong glance, knowing Shisui had been angling for this date ever since he'd seen the Inuzuka take her chuunin exams. Itachi had never quite understood how dating was supposed to work. He had observed ninja his age meandering in pairs during the spring flower-viewing festival, said hello to Hana once or twice when he crossed paths with her, mostly when she was with Shisui, and had even suffered the attentions of a few girls himself earlier that month, at the same flower-viewing festival. Towing Sasuke along had saved his skin from a number of difficult situations, even if Shisui had mocked him relentlessly ever since. He'd finally dropped the matter when Sasuke, who had no idea what it meant to be called a "cock block," repeated the word to his parents. Fugaku had not been amused.

"Sure," Itachi said. "Or you could invite her. Mother wouldn't mind."

Shisui looked at him as if he had just turned into a giant vermillion unicorn. As was obvious to them both, Fugaku and the clan elders wouldn't take the intrusion nearly as well. Then he smirked. "I could, couldn't I? Just for you, Itachi."

They had arrived at the back gate of the main house where Itachi lived; Shisui and his parents occupied the next one over. Sasuke's voice, ringing with excitement, carried through the open windows as clearly as if he were shouting in their ears. "I'm gonna be the best in my class! I can't wait!" In the background, they heard Mikoto gently reminding him to use his indoor-voice.

"On second thought," said Itachi, "save that for another day."

"You don't want me to bring Hana?"

Itachi shook his head. He had just remembered that Sasuke would enter the academy in a few days, probably on the same day that Itachi had to go on his special ANBU mission. He knew his father too well not to guess which one he'd prioritize, despite how obviously Itachi didn't need his supervision and Sasuke wanted it. "It's best not to antagonize Father yet."

His cousin's eyebrow floated up to his hairline. _Yet _was code for Itachi preparing to antagonize the head of the Uchiha Clan another way. "Somehow," said Shisui, "I have the feeling that your rebellious teen phase is going to be a lot more destructive than mine ever was… and I'm not even out of it yet."

* * *

By his twelfth birthday, Itachi had joined the ANBU, got a girlfriend, and coerced his father into attending Sasuke's academy entrance ceremony, not necessarily in that order.

In that same year, he met Shimura Danzou.

* * *

Just as dawn broke over Konoha, Itachi sat up, mask still on his face. The sun's first rays had barely spilled over the village wall, but a stray beam of light had landed squarely on the Shodaime's left tear duct, where Itachi had fallen asleep.

Normally, if the wind didn't blow too strongly and wake him by triggering one of his perimeter traps, the chirping of the birds nearby – two nests in Shodaime and Niidaime's nostrils, respectively, and a newer one tucked behind the Sandaime's right ear – would have roused him from sleep an hour earlier. His limbs felt sluggish as he went through a brief stretch, mostly to check if he had acquired any injuries he'd missed the previous night.

Though the air felt pleasantly brisk on his bare arm, Itachi made his way down to the ANBU barracks, where he had stowed his regulation black cloak. Most of the Root division members chose their own uniform underneath the cloak; Itachi had simply traded in his old ANBU gear through Danzou for a better-fitting set. It hadn't prevented Kabuto from drawing his own conclusions, though, and Itachi felt a little exposed.

His chest also felt tighter as he sprinted past the various administrative buildings to the hidden entrance of the ANBU compound, making him wonder if he was outgrowing his current set of armor. As he inhaled a little more deeply, a strange itch tickled the back of his throat. Sheer willpower held the cough at bay, and even then he had to pause to steady his breath, one hand braced against the pitted concrete wall. Trust his body to contract a cold at the worst possible moment.

Other ANBU flitted past him in the large chamber like minnows around a catfish. Once, Itachi had gone on a mission to Kirigakure and hidden in an underground lake for hours. The unearthly blue ripples of light, the slight brush of unseen creatures swimming around him, had plagued his dreams for two nights until Itachi took medication that ensured he didn't dream at all. Being in the Root barracks reminded him of it in flashes.

Itachi slipped into the moving stream of ANBU, seizing the cloak folded on top of the few possessions he kept in the locker and throwing it around his shoulders.

Returning aboveground was a disorienting experience. During that short interval, the sun had dragged itself all the way into the sky, and now dangled near the horizon behind a thin screen of clouds. Itachi pulled up the hood of his cloak and withdrew to the woods on the eastern side of the Hokage Monument.

He had his orders – relieve Torune during the daytime, maintain twenty-four hour surveillance on 9720. It was time to look in on his targets.

Maintaining the kage bunshin throughout the night had prevented Itachi from getting true rest, but that had been forfeit from the moment he had received the ANBU tattoo anyway. When he checked on either of his targets, he could dismiss the clone in charge and let his chakra levels recover, which they did at a slower rate because of the other kage bunshin. This trade-off would go on throughout the day and continue for weeks even when Danzou found another assignment for Itachi.

Where he had once walked boldly to the Academy doors to his lessons or, occasionally, to pick up Sasuke, Itachi now had to approach the building indirectly. First, he had to locate Torune.

A quick scan with the Sharingan helped him find the man at once. Even then, Torune was barely detectable; thanks to his clan's symbiotic relationship with the kikai insects, his chakra levels appeared unusually low for a shinobi. Each of the venomous bugs that lived on him followed the natural flow of his chakra, making it appear as though Torune's chakra traveled in distinct beads throughout his body.

"For all the problems our eyes have given us, I can't imagine being an Aburame," commented Shisui in undertone.

Itachi held his tongue. He made a point of not responding to his cousin's remarks while on duty. Then again, there was no such thing as being off-duty for members of the Root division. Nor for any of the ANBU, if he was being honest.

He dropped lightly onto the branch directly above Torune's and let a single leaf drift down. A furious but silent swarm of kikai converged on it, shredding and consuming it with startling violence. The leaf never touched the other man's head, but the message had reached him. Torune fell back into shadow as Itachi dismissed his bunshin.

He took a moment to sift through the memories he had just acquired. Not much had occurred. He remembered Umino Iruka walking into the grubby apartment that his chuunin wages barely covered; Iruka flipping through TV channels, laying out some ramen coupons as he reheated the rice; Iruka frowning at a photo on his wall – probably his family, since they looked so alike, and presumably dead; Iruka jotting down lesson plans and finally turning in for the night. The life of an academy teacher seemed strangely domestic, bordering on surreal.

It wasn't the first time Itachi had been ordered to keep an eye on Umino Iruka.

* * *

Itachi, fourteen-years-old and notorious mass-murderer and village traitor for all of one year, watched as the chuunin instructed his students through a routine shuriken-throwing practice in the yard. When Iruka stepped back, his students tried to mimic his stance with varying degrees of success. Some shuriken flew so wide that one of them would have reached the base of the tree where Itachi had taken position, if the student had more strength in his arm. From the far corner of the yard, however, came the regular, thudding sound of shuriken hitting the wooden target dead-on. It didn't take long for the other students to take a break from their own, less fruitful attempts and cluster around the dark-haired boy with a red and white fan on the back of his shirt. Soon, his shuriken was the only sound in the entire yard.

As he exhausted his holster, one of his admirers, a slender girl with bright blond hair, broke the awed silence with a cheer. "Sasuke-kun, you're amazing!"

Suddenly, clapping and sounds of effusive praise filled the schoolyard. It was all _Sasuke, how did you do that can you show me please _and _That was so cool _and _He must be a genius _in disbelieving envy, until a brash, angry young voice snarled, "He's not that cool! _I _could do that!"

"Oh yeah? Prove it!"

A circle of space cleared around the sandy-haired boy who had spoken. He tugged at the collar of an offensively orange jumpsuit that was slightly too large for him and marred by a few broth-stains on the front, narrowing his brilliant blue eyes. One of the other boys – not Sasuke, who had simply crossed his arms and was eyeing him sullenly – started to jeer, but Iruka stepped in.

"Naruto, go ahead and give it a try if you want." Iruka sounded resigned to the scene, from which Itachi gathered it was a regular occurrence. Yet the blonde boy seemed to interpret it as a lack of faith and scowled even harder.

"I can do it, easy."

He stomped over, retrieved one of the shuriken that littered the ground near another target, and took up a throwing stance behind the line marked out for the students. Elbow too high, wrist too stiff; if he gripped the shuriken any tighter, he would cut his fingers on it. Despite all these indications, Naruto glared with such determination at the target that anyone looking only at his face would count on that shuriken flying true.

Just as Naruto prepared to throw, a tiny but audible giggle escaped one of the girls. His concentration splintered, but his grip had already slackened. The weapon flew drunkenly through the air on its flat side. Air resistance brought it down nearly two meters short of the target.

Laughter erupted from all around him.

"Ha! I knew it! As usual…"

"What a loser…"

Face burning, Naruto tried to grab another shuriken, but another boy blocked his way, sneering that _That's _my _shuriken, dumbass, go back to using the wooden ones. _A fight threatened to break out. Ultimately, Naruto and the other boy got sent to separate corners in the yard to practice. Instead of obeying Iruka, Naruto left the yard, not without a backward glance.

The reason Iruka was under surveillance became clearer as the day wore on. During the lunch break, Itachi observed as Iruka watched Naruto sit alone at the swing set, a conflicted expression pulling his brows together. The chuunin instructor obviously sympathized with the boy, and the fact that Naruto happened to be the Kyuubi's vessel made this problematic. Ostracism and failure appeared to be the norm for that boy. Perhaps it would keep Naruto harmless, limited to childish pranks. If Iruka acted on his compassion and actually helped Naruto through his lessons, that would be an entirely different story. Different was unpredictable. Danzou didn't like unpredictable.

_If I were Danzou, _thought Itachi, watching Iruka watch Naruto, _I would take Naruto out of Iruka's influence and give him to someone strong who doesn't know how to deal with young boys. _A jounin who might otherwise cause trouble, for instance, could be bogged down by the nerve-wracking responsibility of limiting whatever damage a jinchuuriki could do. Graduating Naruto might seem counterintuitive when one wanted to contain him, but the false hope might make him more amenable to instruction, and either way, he had already begun to defy the authority of his academy teacher.

But Itachi wasn't Danzou. Even as he remained a stone's throw away from Naruto, he caught sight of Sasuke coming round.

Itachi's brother was already starting to get skinny around the knees and ankles, preparing for that abrupt spurt of growth during puberty. Like most boys who trained to be ninja from childhood, he would go through a period of frustration as he adjusted to arms and legs suddenly much longer than he was used to, but in a relatively short time, Sasuke would be enjoying a much longer reach and greater strength. Until then, he had to wait in this awkward state, straining and full of restless energy.

Itachi felt, rather than consciously moved his hand. A loose bit of bark the size of his thumb came away from the trunk. The fragment of wood wasn't exactly aerodynamic, but he infused his fingertips with a little chakra and flicked it at Sasuke's messy dark hair. The fragment struck Sasuke squarely in the back of his head, nearly snagging on the irrepressible tufts that his mother had once tried to tame with water and comb.

Sasuke spun on his heel, alarm and embarrassment morphing into anger. "Hey!"

Naruto, unsuspecting, looked up and stuck out his tongue anyway. To Sasuke, that was as good as an admission of guilt.

Itachi could hear Shisui chuckling beside him. "Is this how you amuse yourself now, Itachi?"

He watched as the two boys started to bicker. No fistfight, though – Sasuke was too dignified to resort to that, Naruto too delighted that someone had initiated any sort of interaction with him. Itachi hadn't misjudged them.

After everything he'd done to Sasuke, flicking a bit of bark at him was the least Itachi could do. What Sasuke made of Naruto's mysteriously good aim didn't say much about _his_ deductive skills, though.

That was the only interaction Itachi had with his brother for the next three years.

* * *

Towards evening, Itachi left a kage bunshin to monitor Iruka and sought out Kakashi. To avoid leaving the jounin unmonitored for any length of time, Itachi had sent a second clone to track down the first one while he had still been keeping an eye on Iruka, so that he could simply dismiss the clone that had been watching Kakashi overnight and immediately know the man's location and previous activities without wasting extra time.

Hatake Kakashi's activities were much less structured than Iruka's, though well within the range typical of a jounin of Konoha. The unfinished mission report on his desk was soon neglected in favor of napping, reading some questionable literature, sauntering out to order some broiled saury and rice, ignoring an obnoxious man in a green jumpsuit – 10252, Maito Gai – and taking a stroll with his nose buried in the orange book he had brought along with him.

Although he seemed immersed in the small volume, Kakashi appeared to have a destination in mind. His feet carried him, with no particular urgency, to the Konoha Memorial. Itachi lagged behind, tracking his movements with the Sharingan. It seemed, however, that Kakashi genuinely intended to stop at the cenotaph.

Kakashi put away his book and stood before the memorial in silence for a long moment. Hidden in the dense foliage to Kakashi's left, Itachi could see how his only visible eye – the pilfered Sharingan covered by his forehead protector – immediately latched onto one point on the cenotaph. One name.

"I told you I'd be fine," Kakashi drawled. "See, Obito, I'm in one piece. No broken bones, no bruises. Learned a few interesting techniques, though, thanks to you."

Obito's name called up an indistinct impression in Itachi's memory – a guileless face, a vaguely contagious smile – mainly just the syllables themselves, _U-chi-ha –O-biii-toooo, _shouted in exasperation by not a few of his cousins and aunts. Itachi hadn't had the Sharingan yet, so his memory of Obito was imperfect. Obito had died during the Third Shinobi World War. _Got himself killed in Iwa, what did I tell you?_ had been the words, until the clan found out about his legacy. And then it had been _traitor, idiot, dregs of the family, how dare he – how could he do that – the Hatake have no honor and that son, I hear he's a prodigy but he's not one of us, he doesn't know – doesn't _deserve _that eye_.

With all that, Itachi was surprised the elders hadn't scratched Obito's name out on the heroes' memorial and consigned him to oblivion.

"I can imagine what you'd advise," said Kakashi conversationally to the cenotaph. "You always had stupid suggestions, because you always believed the best of people." The corner of his eye crinkled and the mask covering the lower half of his face stretched; Itachi imagined that he was smiling. "I suppose now's as good a time as any for me to do something just as stupid."

It occurred to Itachi that Kakashi was slightly mad, but that fell within the typical range for jounin, too. Rumor had it that post-mission psych screenings tended to go a little easier on ninja after ten years of active duty.

"So let's not beat around the bush or pretend any longer. Why don't you tell me why you've started watching me instead of actually looking out for your brother, Itachi?"

Itachi's breath hitched. It was barely noticeable, but the tickle in his throat returned.

_Count to ten, count to twenty, go through everything you know – a ninja does not give in to physical discomfort – complete _your mission - _'but he's a masochist' - fifteen – sixteen – seventeen – eighteen – _

The tickling sensation went away. Itachi could breathe again.

Kakashi kept staring at the cenotaph. Wise of him. On the other hand, he had pushed up his forehead protector to reveal the long scar over his left eye, which he seemed to keep shut through willpower alone.

Before Itachi had become a captain himself, he had carried out ANBU assignments under Kakashi's leadership once or twice. They had known each other in the past, so Danzou's latest mission would have been less risky for another operative. But no one questioned the commander's orders.

Kakashi's Sharingan would have allowed him to see through the genjutsu employed by Itachi's clones. It had been a low-level technique to avoid attracting attention through excessive chakra usage, and the Sharingan would have seen through it easily when Kakashi noticed the bunshin.

"Why don't you come out?" said Kakashi.

Why should he? Kakashi already had a good idea of where Itachi was, after all.

Or not; perhaps he only suspected Itachi was somewhere in the vicinity.

"I'm a loyal shinobi of Konoha. You can tell that to the Tsuchikage for all I care." Kakashi adjusted his forehead protector so that it once again covered his left eye, and then sat down with his back against the cenotaph. Out came the little orange book. "Sorry, Obito – I read ahead without you. You can just fill in what you missed."

Itachi imagined what he would say later that night as Kakashi's cool voice burned his ears with vivid tales of intimate acts, all of increasing physical improbability. For all that the orange book looked pocket-sized, it seemed that the litany would never end.

Nothing to report. _Nothing to report at all._

Shisui wisely held his tongue.


	2. Memento

**Note: **Caught up to chapter 628 of the manga, where we discover the Uchiha are the cause of every shit du jour. You didn't actually think I would update anything happy after that, did you? Also, I'm hoping to limit this tale to 5 parts. Fingers crossed.

**Warnings: **Achronological. Read carefully. The first few words of the scenes in his memory/past are italicized.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine; Japanese suffixes used where less clumsy.

* * *

_Memento_

* * *

_The handle of the katana _felt slippery in his hands.

Itachi kept his eyes on the tall, lanky form of his cousin Tekka, probing for the reason as they edged closer to striking distance. He didn't feel nervous, and it was too early for his palms to feel sweaty when he had just finished kunai-throwing practice and picked up the longer weapon at his father's behest. Kunai-throwing no longer took much out of him; he had to work harder to set up challenging targets. Tekka had missed the last three that Itachi had struck dead-center, and now his knuckles were white around the hilt of his katana. Although Fugaku had instructed them from his own experience to keep a relaxed grip on their swords, Tekka's blade would probably come down with the force of a woodcutter's axe.

His cousin's breathing sped up. Forewarned, Itachi stepped slightly to the side and back, letting the downward stroke of Tekka's sword go awry on the flat of his own blade. In the same motion, he turned his sword around and swung downwards. The edge of the blade stopped right above Tekka's hair, poised to split his skull in half.

"Good."

The two of them parted, breaking the tableau. Tekka retreated to the proper distance and started to reset, but Fugaku's voice stopped him.

"You can put that away. Itachi, how far did you get with the Housenka technique?"

"I can do it," said Itachi. He could see why the hilt had been slippery now. One of his blisters had popped. It had left a faint smear of blood on the _tsuka. _

"Let's go to the bridge. Tekka, let Yakumi know I'll see him here tomorrow at three."

"Yes, sir."

Although Itachi was relatively certain he could keep up with Fugaku at a sprint with the use of chakra, his father's longer strides meant that he quickly outpaced him at a normal walk. But surely this was one occasion where Itachi could be excused for lagging behind – he had been training all morning, and stamina had never been his strength. His way was to do everything right the first time, and quickly.

At the end of the street, his father turned and paused for him to catch up.

"Itachi."

"Yes, Father?"

Fugaku was watching him with a somber expression. His eyes looked bloodshot, heavy-lidded with fatigue. The only time Itachi remembered seeing him appear well-rested and completely alert was many springs ago, in an old family picture that slipped out of a kimono box his mother had been putting away. Mikoto had started to replace it inside the paper wrappings, but relented after Itachi darted forward to peer at the faintly blurred faces.

"Your mother was twenty-three then. Didn't I look young?" She laughed softly, pointing out the baby in her arms. "I'm sure you were the quietest baby in the history of Konoha. We never had more than three hours of sleep in a row after Sasuke was born… You must have been around one year old when this picture was taken." She tilted the frame so that Itachi could run his fingers over the image of a family that now seemed much too small.

"Father looks different," he'd said only.

Itachi's memory of his face in that long-ago photograph receded behind the present reality – a square-jawed visage that looked forbidding in the harsh midday light, with bags that cast deep shadows under the eyes and creases at the corners of the mouth, frown-lines that time had worn into his face.

"Tell me the truth, Itachi. Would it be a waste of time to go over more C-level fire-element techniques with you? Would you prefer to learn those on your own?"

Although he was only seven-years-old, Itachi's instructors were already pushing for his early graduation. At first, Itachi's peers had stared in disbelief as Itachi mastered skill after skill with an alacrity they couldn't hope to match. Then they resented him. Finally, they just let him be, accepting his genius as a force of nature. None of the older students could hold their own against him in mock-sparring sessions. Meanwhile, Fugaku had been putting him through additional training with his older cousins, and half the time, Itachi defeated them on the first try. He got all of them on the second. He had yet to test his abilities against his most brilliant cousin, due to an accident of mission schedules and the hours he was required to spend at the ninja academy, but if his instructor and his father had any say about it, Itachi would be graduating at the end of this semester, whether he liked it or not. No one asked him.

This was a rare moment.

"I could learn those techniques from anyone in the clan," he said. "Is there something that only you could teach me?"

Fugaku studied his face. Whatever he saw, he seemed to find what he was looking for. The slight smile that curved the corners of his mouth revealed an echo of the good looks he had once possessed. "That's rather ambitious of you." He turned to continue down the path to the riverbank. "As I'd expect from my son."

* * *

It seemed to take forever to pull the katana free of the body. Blood and whatever was inside the man's large intestine dripped from the blade, dulling its silver sheen.

"Have you tried a tanto?" asked Shisui. "I hear there's a reason the ANBU prefer it for assassinations."

Thanks to the Sharingan and his own powers of observation, Itachi could replay the scene in his head down to the last detail. If he so wished, he could examine the way Akado Yoroi's spittle had flown out of his mouth when he finally realized he would die and screamed in rage. Or he could revisit the jarring sound of the katana stabbing into Yoroi's midsection and getting caught in the lumbar vertebrae.

Itachi could have killed Yoroi more neatly, but he had paused to test the chakra-absorption technique that the man had obligingly demonstrated earlier at Training Ground No. 15. As a consequence, the katana had not cut into him at the optimal distance. A tanto's shorter blade would have made a cleaner job of it, though if Itachi had cared, any number of genjutsu or ninjutsu – or even a little more effort – would probably have sufficed.

His own tanto had been out of commission ever since it had bisected Yakushi Kabuto. Whatever had been in that blood-mist had corroded the steel in a matter of hours. Still, that was no excuse when he knew where the Uchiha Clan kept its stockpile of weapons. A narrow passageway connected the hidden armory to the secret meeting place under the Naka shrine, in case the Uchiha were ever surprised in the middle of a council.

The final part of assassination missions was body disposal. Bundled up, Yoroi was little more than a heavy, oblong parcel. All traces of No. 11930 would soon cease to exist altogether. Itachi had to hurry before the corpse became too pungent for him to transport out of the village unnoticed.

Training Ground 44 wasn't called the Forest of Death just because many less-prepared genin who wandered in never went out again; it also served as the unofficial cemetery for the victims of Konoha-issued assassinations. The forest's reclusive inhabitants would swallow up the ashy residue of Akado Yoroi, as it had countless others.

Itachi held his breath until he reached the first fringe of woodland north of the village. In recent days, the itchy sensation in the back of his throat had extended farther, until every time he inhaled a little deeper, the air rasped against something in his bronchi, triggering a bout of coughing. Instead of risking it, Itachi had started to breathe shallowly, alternately holding his breath at more critical intervals.

Once he was out of reasonable earshot of the guards on Konoha's outer wall, he relaxed slightly, crouching to lower Yoroi to the ground. Before he could straighten again, the coughing struck.

This time it was especially severe. The cough wracked his whole body and tore at his throat until even his faint, ragged breath sent him down another spiral. The Sharingan bled out of his eyes and all he saw was night. As a last resort, Itachi braced himself against a tree and pressed his fingertips to the tenketsu in his other forearm. A Hyuuga with whom he had occasionally worked in his earlier stint in the ANBU had warned him not to use the jyuuken techniques he had copied. Like medical ninjutsu, the fighting style of the Hyuuga Clan required more than knowledge of hand-seals or chakra coils theory. Itachi didn't have the Byakugan or even his normal vision. Half-blind, he probed for the release-points by gathering chakra in his forearm, and then directly injected more chakra to the tenketsu from his fingertips.

The chakra-absorption technique had introduced foreign chakra into his system, and it had yet to meld perfectly with his own. The resulting jolt lit sparks behind his eyelids. For one eternal moment, Itachi saw himself in the dark, a grey-and-black figure dwarfed by the trunk supporting his weight. He heard a few curious, predatory eyes fix their gaze on him, wondering if he would be easy pickings.

Nerve-endings flared from his elbow up, scattering an unpleasant sensation of pins and needles throughout his body. Itachi threw back his head and gasped for air. The hollow rattle in his chest, the burning pain in his lungs, told him that he was still alive.

When a huge, round mouth lined with multiple rows of teeth surged out of the darkness, Itachi dropped low and tossed Akado Yoroi in without a second thought. The body disappeared down the enormous gullet in a single hungry gulp.

Mission completed, Itachi took inventory: he had experienced no sudden influx of memories, so all his kage bunshin were still in place. That would have to do for now, since Danzou had summoned all the Root members to the basement of the ANBU compound, ten minutes to midnight.

Itachi left the forest with a few chakra-laced jumps, holding his breath for as long as he could.

* * *

In a chamber full of faceless ANBU, Danzou looked like the only one wearing a mask. He bore their hidden gazes with apparent calm, waiting until his personal guards signaled that the hall was secure. Itachi recognized the solid, broad-shouldered figure who stepped up behind the commander. So that was where Torune had been reassigned.

"The Hokage has put us on Code 3 starting next month, but I am ordering you to guard Konoha as if we were under wartime conditions. From now until fourteen days after the chuunin exams, ANBU Root is to deploy according to Code 5 levels. Captains, adjust your shift rotations. Be on the alert for foreigners who are arriving ostensibly as participants and leaders of genin teams. Boar, Ox, and Dog will concentrate on securing the outer perimeter…"

Itachi clenched his teeth as the itch built up in his throat.

"… to monitor and infiltrate the daimyou guard as necessary. Snake and Rat will report a minimum of once every three hours on all the activities of the kage to whom they are assigned."

Itachi had gotten up from his kneeling position to deploy with the rest of the squads when Danzou summoned him with a subtle flick of his wrist.

"Sir," he managed in a low voice, between one shallow breath and the next.

"Is something the matter?"

Danzou never asked after a shinobi's health just to be solicitous. "No, Commander." He felt the man's heavy gaze on him.

"Good." Evidently, Danzou had a more pressing subject on his mind. "The daimyo of Wind is planning to bring his young brat to the chuunin exams and will be contracting some of the ninja from Suna for extra protection, as well as to prove that their earlier conflicts of interest have been resolved. The Suna ninja will arrive at his castle in five days. You will dispose of the daimyo's son on the first night of their stay, make it appear as though the ninja have left in haste, and plant their bodies where Suna is likely to find them." After that, Suna would be lucky of the daimyo of Wind didn't hire foreign ninja to take out their village, let alone give them mission contracts. It was just another scheme to increase Konoha's revenue from missions at its rival's expense.

"Do not fail," Danzou added abruptly. "I expect you to remain vigilant in your surveillance duties."

Itachi kept his eyes on the scattered particles of dirt on the floor. "Understood."

* * *

So Danzou suspected him.

"It's a test, of course," Shisui agreed. "He wants to see how far you'll bend until you break. How far he can stretch you, what you're willing to do."

Itachi hefted another tanto in his hands. Both this one and the previous weapon had looked fine under the soft lantern light that illuminated the secret Uchiha armory, but Itachi immediately felt the difference. The first tanto had been forged in an older era; the slightly thinner blade of the second made for a better cut. They were both _moroha _and lethally sharp on both edges. "I 'disposed' of my clan," he said calmly, sheathing the second to take with him. "What wouldn't I do?"

Shisui knew better than to bring up Sasuke, who was still very much alive. "The difference is," Itachi heard his cousin say slowly, almost with deliberate cruelty, "he never saw you cry over it. He _thinks _you're unstable. He doesn't know how far he can use you, even with leverage. That said… do you know yourself how far you'll go to prevent war? I suppose your resolution doesn't count when it's a civil war in another country."

Itachi slammed the trapdoor shut behind him… or he would have liked to. Instead, he lowered it carefully by the edges of its corners so that most of the layer of dust on top of it would remain.

He spent the next half-hour choking on his coughs near the Forest of Death.

* * *

_What with Mikoto's_ maternal protectiveness and the suspicious nature characteristic of his clan, Itachi hadn't set foot in Konoha Hospital's walk-in clinic until his cousin started to spend an inordinate amount of time there.

Most of the time, for something as simple as a bone fracture, he went home and dealt with it himself, but Shisui had just returned from a mission and insisted on going to the hospital. As it would have been silly not to just take advantage of the clinic when he was already there, Itachi decided to get his arm healed by an actual medic for once. Of course, as he began to take on more classified missions, Itachi could also imagine going to a nonrelative more often to avoid the inevitable questions from Father; missions were always classified, especially for his family. It seemed fitting that his first full day as an ANBU captain followed professional tradition by coinciding with his first-ever experience getting treated at the clinic, even if the visit had resulted from a whim rather than personal need.

It didn't look like a particularly busy day. Itachi abruptly realized that Shisui had other reasons to loiter around the hospital aside from injured teammates when Hana passed him in the lobby. She nodded to him before continuing down the hallway, her eyes back on the clipboard in her hands.

Two chuunin and a pink-haired girl with a scraped knee were already in the waiting room. Itachi signed in and then sat down next to the table of magazines, where he could view all the exits but not be directly across from any of them. The chuunin were debating the physical merits of Suna versus Konoha kunoichi rather indelicately, though the pink-haired girl seemed quite deaf to their discussion. Her eyes stared at the buffed tiles as she swung her legs back and forth on the chair.

"- Yeah, the fishnets really do it for me. Kohada won't even try them out – says they give her weird tan-lines or something – but _damn… _"

The magazines seemed geared towards civilians more than ninja, advertising sportswear and clothing that didn't meet basic standards for genin. Noticing the pink-haired girl's inquisitive glance, Itachi replaced the magazine on top of the pile so that she could take it while he pretended to watch the television up on the wall.

"Haruno Sakura," called a familiar voice.

The girl scooted off the chair gingerly and went to the doorway.

Hana entered the waiting room and seemed to take in everything at a glance. Her eyes dropped to the clipboard in her hands once more before she addressed the two chuunin. "Excuse me, I don't have your names here. Did you remember to sign in at the desk?"

One of the chuunin leaned back in his chair, removing his glasses with a smirk. "Oh, we're not here to see the doctor… unless you're it. When's your lunch break?"

Itachi saw Hana give him a tolerant smile. "As soon as the waiting room's empty, actually. You could help it along…"

"Mozuku."

"Right." She turned to the other chuunin, who was openly leering. "The waiting room's only for people who need to see the doctor, so why don't you both go to the lobby?"

"But –" The chuunin made a show of reading her name off the tag on the front of her clothes – "Hana –"

"My face is up here."

The chuunin stood up, looking displeased but undiscouraged. "All right, sweetheart, we'll leave you to it. If you change your mind…"

"I'll let you know." Hana's smile bared her eyeteeth, which were just slightly larger than usual, as was characteristic of the Inuzuka Clan. She had just started to give Itachi a wry look when Mozuku passed behind her. Whatever he did, it made her expression freeze.

Before anyone else could react, Mozuku's face crashed into the wall. Almost immediately, his pained yelp of surprise died down to a feeble whimper. In the ensuing silence, the minute hand of the clock ticked loudly.

"You can let him go now," said Hana, sounding bemused.

After another beat, Itachi released his grip on Mozuku's arm.

The chuunin rubbed his wrist, looking startled and wary. A slight discoloration had begun to bloom across one of his cheekbones. His friend hovered near the door, already half out of the room.

"Look," said Mozuku, addressing Itachi. "I didn't realize she was, er, spoken for. No hard feelings."

Itachi moved aside, but only to give Hana a clear line of attack.

"You owe me an apology, not him. That was inexcusably rude."

"Eh. Sorry…?"

Hana made a disgusted sound and shoved him in the direction of the exit. "Get out." When they had left, her irritated stare landed on Itachi. "Thanks, but you didn't need to be so _chivalrous_."

He held her gaze, willing the annoyance to drain from her dark eyes. "Shisui wasn't here."

"You don't have to protect me like I'm his property."

Itachi endured her glare. They were of a height, though Itachi's growth spurt had yet to run its course. Shisui had seven centimeters on her; Itachi had a right to expect at least that much, since both Fugaku and Mikoto were taller than Shisui's parents. "I wasn't thinking of it like that. I did it for a friend."

"You have friends?"

It was a fair, if unkind question – Itachi was rather famous for not having any. Whether anyone in the ANBU would warm up to him remained to be seen, but he wasn't going to hold his breath. ANBU was not for people who wanted to make deep, lasting friendships.

He looked at Hana and asked mildly, "Now who's being rude?"

The tense pause stretched on until Hana laughed. Some of the stiffness eased from Itachi's shoulders. "I'm sorry. Let's be friends, Itachi. I wouldn't want you as my enemy."

"All right." Admitting the whole truth would have restored Hana's bad mood. No matter what she said, in Itachi's mind, she was Shisui's, not so much his property as she was his by association.

Oddly enough, Itachi didn't feel as strongly about his own girlfriend, who was a distantly related clan member. Fugaku had withheld his approval because she was, in fact, _too_ distantly related; her family resided in the Uchiha compound, but her bloodline was so tenuously linked to theirs that her eyes were a dark blue rather than the standard charcoal grey. For all they saw of each other, Itachi could be dating someone outside the clan, except people weren't exactly lining up for the dubious honor of having the world's worst boyfriend, clan heir or not. These days, people's faces tended to twitch unpleasantly whenever an Uchiha walked past. Shisui's girlfriend really was quite the exception.

Hana sat down in one of the many vacant chairs. He followed suit to be polite, the adrenaline draining from his veins. "I'm sorry if you've been waiting for a while," she said. "Most of the doctors on clinic duty are out even though they're not supposed to be on break yet. What are you here for?"

Itachi indicated his forearm. "I have a fracture."

"I can take care of that, unless you have any objections. Actually, you could probably deal with it yourself."

"Shisui was going to meet me here, so I thought I might as well go to the clinic." But he let Hana examine it, glancing away at the window.

Sunlight had suffused the room with warmth. An air conditioning unit hummed in the background, but so feebly that it barely cooled the air. It had been a bearable temperature up until the short altercation. Itachi's heart beat a little faster at the cool fingertips on his skin. He was a tactile person with those he loved, but he generally preferred to be the one initiating contact, whether it was jabbing Sasuke's forehead or leaning in slightly so that his mother knew he'd permit a one-armed hug. When the majority of one's experiences with physical contact were geared towards killing or maiming, it was easy to lose comfort with it.

Foreign chakra licked up his arm beneath the skin, sealing fissures invisible to the naked eye. He suppressed a shiver. "The bone isn't really the main problem," Hana told him. "You're developing tendonitis in your wrist."

Itachi opened his eyes. He hadn't noticed when he had closed them. His breath caught slightly as he realized how vulnerable he had allowed himself to be mere seconds ago. Going by the expression on Hana's face, she hadn't missed his apprehension.

She let go of his arm. "It seems pointless to say this, but you should get more rest. Maybe you could remove yourself from the mission roster for a couple of days."

Itachi nodded. It would be equally pointless to roll up his sleeve and show her the ANBU tattoo – that wasn't permitted, in any case – or explain that these days, staying home was an even more grueling mission than any assignments that took him outside the village.

_If you care at all about Konoha, _Danzou had ordered, _watch them. Watch all of them. Your cousins, your uncles, even your own father and mother. _The Sandaime looked a little kinder, but he said essentially the same thing.

"When did you start interning at the hospital?" he asked instead. He couldn't help but notice how she cast a glance around now and then, as if searching for the ninken that usually followed her everywhere. They must have gone to wait in the park beside the hospital until her shift ended.

Hana dropped the subject. "Only a month ago. I'm still going to become a veterinarian, but I thought it'd be good to learn some techniques for treating humans. That way I can be a back-up medic someday as well as a tracker."

"What have you learned?"

"Paperwork. Don't worry, I came in already knowing how to do basic healing."

"I wasn't worried until you mentioned it…"

She huffed and sat back in her seat with crossed arms, but took his teasing with a faint grin. Itachi flexed the hand of his newly healed arm, observing the shifting concavities around bone and ligament. When he glanced up, he found Hana looking at him again. Her eyes made him think of polished jet. They seemed much warmer now that she wasn't annoyed, and the effect was startlingly enjoyable. The longer he held her gaze, the faster his heart seemed to beat.

Disconcerted by his reaction, Itachi schooled his features into the bland expression he wore at official clan ceremonies. "Thank you."

She tilted her head with exaggerated politeness to match his formality. "You're welcome."

"I could spring for some yakisoba," said Shisui from the door. The odd moment that Itachi had been having burst like a popped bubble. "Itachi, are you injured or what?"

"Not anymore." He stood up, shoving away the awkwardness that had magnified with his cousin's arrival.

Shisui's eyes flickered past him. "How long is it until your break, Hana?"

"I'm free for now, but a group of medic-nin are having lunch in the hospital cafeteria. Kitou-san said he would give me an overview of some of the more useful emergency ninjutsu."

"Fine, but you'll be missed," Shisui said breezily. Itachi knew him well enough to hear the slight disappointment in his voice, but it wasn't in Shisui's nature to press the matter. "You're leaving at ten for a mission, right?"

"Yes, I'll drop by before then if I can."

Itachi moved to the door, giving them a little privacy.

"See you around, Itachi," he heard Hana say as they finished making plans. "Take care of that wrist."

Shisui caught up to Itachi at the doorway, retorting with raised eyebrows, "And what have you two been doing that's strained his wrist? Should I be concerned now?"

"How can you even … Oh, shut up, Shisui. He's just a kid."

"He's only one year younger than you… I think I'll be concerned, thank you very much."

"Get lost," said Hana, sounding much more like the rest of her family. She smiled at Itachi as he cleared the doorway, so that he looked back and missed most of the question that Shisui had just asked.

"Yes," he answered, after a quick review of the last few syllables and a calculated guess about the rest.

"Wow, Itachi, I didn't think you'd look good with platinum hair, but it's up to you if you want to dye it…"

"You were asking if I'd ever help fix Sasuke's throwing stance."

"Why couldn't I have a cousin who was fun and clueless instead of this smart-aleck?" wondered Shisui aloud.

Itachi just shrugged. _Instead, you got the one who almost hits on your girlfriend. _Better to think of his eight-year-old brother, too young to have many aspirations beyond throwing a weapon properly. Just another typical shinobi child who would someday use those skills to kill. The thought didn't actually cheer him.

* * *

The daimyo's son was eight years old. Itachi found him asleep in a heap of silken coverlets.

His tanto's blade gleamed blue in the moonlight from the window. The child deserved that much – that second of mercy, when he could have opened his eyes and screamed. Not that he ever had a chance.

"This won't be the last," said Shisui. Itachi saw his cousin stand on the other side of the bed, like a warning come too late.

_I know. _

The steel parted flesh with an expert twist of Itachi's wrist.

_This won't be the last._

* * *

"What's wrong? What did you smell?"

The two others had stopped when their teammate froze, sniffing the air. Their instructor had dismissed them perhaps thirty minutes ago and left to turn in their mission report.

The boy who had pulled up abruptly scratched the back of his neck. He was chewing on the inside of his cheek, distorting the clan tattoos on his face. "Death," he said ominously.

"Kiba," said the other boy in a quelling tone. The girl had gone nearly as pale as her eyes, which were cloud grey, almost blending in with the eye whites.

"It's ok," said Hyuuga Hinata. "I can check."

Chakra flowed to her eyes, straining the veins around them. Her Byakugan saw only a typical forest canopy, populated by a number of birds, a squirrel, and a marten slipping through the underbrush.

"I don't see anything." She continued to stare for a moment longer, swiveling her head to account for her blind spot.

"Sorry." Kiba sounded sincere. His other teammates were too kind to rub it in. "I thought I did smell something weird."

He hadn't been mistaken, thought Itachi as he waited on a bough, one hand clamped over his mouth. He watched as the genin trudged down the path just inside the village walls. Some days, he could hold back the cough better than others. Those had become few and far between. The close encounter had also revealed how deficient Itachi was in scent-masking. He took the usual precautions that he had learned in ANBU, aware that relying too much on a doujutsu hurt his technique in other ways. But evidently, factoring in the recent state of his health, those were not enough.

"Find someone to look at it outside of Konoha," Shisui urged.

Obviously. But whom? And where?

Itachi had done his job too well over the years. Officially, he had yet to report back from the mission against the Wind daimyo, but if he delayed even half a day, Danzou would suspect that either the mission had gone awry, or Itachi had. If he wanted extra time to explore his options, he needed to deal with his assignment with even greater efficiency.

"There _is _another option," Shisui said. "You could use the –"

"I won't waste it on something this trivial."

Predictably, his cousin snorted. "If you don't use it, you may have to pass it on to someone soon."

"I'd rather not," said Itachi, thinking of cursed sight and all the blood and hatred that marred Uchiha history. No one outside of the clan deserved the kind of suffering their gifts could bring, and Sasuke had more than enough on his shoulders.

He considered his options in the next few weeks as his hand wielded the old tanto with swift efficiency. His targets merged together in a long chain of numbers and names, lodging in his memory like gristle between the teeth.

He concluded that there was no possible way for him to receive treatment in the main village hospital. Even the ANBU who could walk unmasked in the daylight preferred to take advantage of the special medic-nin assigned to their lot, considering the severity of the injury that usually forced them to seek treatment. And there were other issues. Itachi's most troublesome target, Kabuto, had formerly served as one of the Root medics, and the line between medic-nin and experimenter was notoriously thin. Everything that went on in the Root clinic reached Danzou's ears, which gave all of them even less incentive to approach the Root medic-nin.

Itachi had never learned much beyond the basic medical ninjutsu, but it was hardly unreasonable for him to believe that he could pick up whatever skill was necessary. The only thing which he could not trust himself to do was an accurate self-diagnosis.

Speeding through his genin and chuunin years had done him no favors in terms of making friends. He could possibly leave the village on a day trip and find Tsunade, one of the legendary Sannin who could supposedly treat any injury or ailment. He could also possibly sign into the general village hospital as Uchiha Itachi and exude charm until one of the staff agreed to see him. After everyone had a go at killing him and screaming at him for answers.

Konoha would soon be crawling with foreign ninja during the chuunin exams, and then even these moments spent contemplating theoretical possibilities would become a distant luxury. In the short term, Itachi decided to observe a few hospital procedures via kage bunshin despite the alarming toll exacted on him just for maintaining two a day. He could try to examine his own condition later with the same technique.

On the eve of the first wave of foreign arrivals, Itachi conducted a quick patrol along the sector of the wall that ran from north to north-northeast. His shift had begun at midnight, and the cloudy sky shrouded Konoha in near-total darkness. He heard, felt, and smelled, rather than saw. The dark played tricks on his sense of distance, so that although he knew the Inuzuka Clan lived a little farther from the outer wall, the baying of their dogs washed over him as close and intimate as fingers tracing along his arm. A shiver threatened to ripple over him. When Shisui's sharp glance burned through his skull, Itachi bit his tongue, almost wishing for another bout of coughing to distract him.

"We're as good as brothers," he heard his cousin's low voice murmur from a rustling bough to his left, "but there are some things that cannot be shared."

Itachi braced a hand on the tree trunk, standing from his perch on one of its high branches. "I would never ask it of you."

"But you thought of it."

"I've thought of many things. But I never set out to hurt you."

"You killed me, dear cousin." Shisui's breath, laced with the metallic tang of blood and bile, wafted to Itachi. He was glad to have put his hand against the tree as a gust of wind flung leaves into his face, tearing them from branches and prickling his skin with their edges. When it was over, even the dogs had fallen silent.

"That part was a lie, Shisui, remember? You came to me and told me with your dying breath who had done that to you."

"How do you know what's a lie and what's not?" asked his cousin, sounding reasonable again. "Don't you know that lies are the only thing that the Sharingan helps you to remember?" Shisui's voice went cold and sibilant as his mouth opened wider, splitting his face in two. "I am the only truth you have left." His tongue flickered between his lips, long and grey, forked at the ends.

A part of Itachi recoiled in revulsion. Chakra rushed to the veins in his eyes; his hand lashed out, throwing a shuriken at the last place he had seen his cousin. The small, bladed weapon fell off into the shadows. He stared a moment longer, blinded by his Sharingan. There was no one there. A soft whisper in the air, and he executed a body replacement technique, reappearing on the opposite branch in time to watch a single leaf drift to the bough where he had stood.

Itachi swallowed. His throat felt raw on the inside, but it itched like the tattoo on his shoulder once had. "Be still," said his mother; "as I expected of my son," echoed Fugaku – (_you killed me, _Shisui gasped through a mouthful of blood) -

"How do you like it?" asked Madara with a barking laugh, as the sky flashed crimson for the space of a heartbeat.


End file.
